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 he vast expense of ocean rose and fell in one giant heaving sigh. The grey met the grey as the sky became one with the fluid landscape, fused as one dark soul. And so the rain inevitably fell, the waves taking each drop deep into their hearts, swelling - the sea rising higher. The water-buoys danced to the rhythm of the tide, waves to kiss and caress, to strike every hull, before falling away, leaving little lights a-burning, little bells a-ringing, ringing into the deep and far past; the wing of the gull, one motion of continuity. The ocean depths thrown upwards, only to go down again. Rain, sea and sky were one. No separation or division, one mass entity.
The lighthouse, tall shoreline angel, throwing deep beams into the dark, swinging glare carving great chunks off the night, sweeping, majestic. It watches the treasures of the sea thrown sky-high and then dragged silently down, all in deep crashing silence.
The lighthouse - thrashing by the effervescent fury of the sea, its needless-eye view point of the world, its frenzy beams swaying over the empty chill of the night-time sea. One structure above all others, one high point sculpture, its isolation...
The beach listened to the roaring scream of the tide, its large echoes. The hollow pearl of the Moon allowed its glaze to drop, its blank eyes reflected in the ripples, going absolutely nowhere...
Midnight. Winter curtains lapsed into temporary closure. Outside the warm windows the moths collided on failed night-vision flight paths, frantic urgency running in their hearts. They played hide and seek in moonlit shadows, craving the security of the lights inside.
Inside, there sat a single man. Solitary in a sparsely furnished room, lit by a bright, bare 40-watt halo Evil shadows hung in the corners of the room, drapes of despair to the figure. He glared at the large clock that rested in the dead centre of the largest wall. The monotonous 'tick', another second, then another. The digital face on his watch shifted its LCD struts to form the numbers '12.00'. The letters 'a.m.' appeared by them in small black letters. The clock stopped. The ocean-blue eyes swung instinctively towards the door. It stood like a head-stone on the opposite side of the room, imposing, deadly, evil.
Three knocks resonated through the bare room. A mist-fine sheen of sweat reflected a million points of light as the man stood up, directly under the burning light-bulb. Wiping his sweating hands down his trousers, heart racing at impossible speeds, his eyes dodged from one side of the room to the other but always it seemed, to fall on the door. It became like a mile walk across the acre of plain floorboards to the cause of his fevered condition. His hand reached out slowly, almost painfully, to the shinning handle, the brass with a life of its own in the darker region of the room. The man swallowed deeply and turning the handle, pulling the door open and inwards in one flowing sweep. The clock started again and agonisingly it struck midnight. The nervous man stepped backwards as another figure entered the room.
The figure stood in deep shadows on the threshold of the room, watching his prey, waiting for some kind of protagonist move. None came. He stepped into the room and was set alight by the bulb, his face ablaze with wide smile of triumph and victory.
He looked exactly the same as the man who had answered the door, with the exception of his clothing. He was decked from head to toe in black, the evil shadow-land colour.
He turned his head to his sweating mirror image who began to walk backwards to the far side of the room, hoping to find some form of protection or defence, but only finding his hopes ravaged by the bareness of his apartment. With his hands deep in his pockets, the figure in black walked a few slow paces across the room and stopped. He tilted his head, and smiled at his refection.
'Cuckoo,' he said, 'Cuckoo.'
The tide hammered relentlessly against the door of the midnight shoreline, dredging the depths for some vestige of key. The stars were held above it all, motionless pin-pricks that in reality, in fully-blown-up-in-your-face-reality, were white screaming fires, heat beyond any temperature scale, size beyond any measurable scale. Burning deep in the dark. Burning bright.
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The Homeland
